A little project I’ve been working on for the last week at work: Firefox Addiction

K and I managed to finally snag ourselves a Wii Fit. I’ve been on the hunt for one for over a month and Friday we managed to snag not one but two, allowing us to at least halve the cost of our own one.

Saturday we sat down and played with it for the first time and I’ve committed myself to “30 Days of Wii Fit.” I’m going to eat right, and do at least 10 minutes of Wii Fit everyday for the next month. Probably more as I get going, but I can do 10 minutes on the thing no matter how busy I am. And we’ll see how it goes. If this month shows improvement, then I’m considering another 30 day project of Wii Fit + Wii Boxing which can work up quite a sweat.

Who knows, I could be Nintendo’s Jared.

In all seriousness though, Wii Fit is amazing. K and I are extremely lazy when it comes to working out, we live hectic lives but we always are “too tired” to walk, or too busy, or we just forget, or it’s raining. Well, Wii Fit makes all of those excuses much more difficult to come by.

When I unpacked it and set it up, it was all fairly straight forward. I weighed in and went through the balance test. I noticed that they registered me about 20 lbs light of what I knew my weight to be so while Katie went through the setup procedure I went to double check my weight and sure enough it was off.

The kit came with some feet to put over the Balance Board’s feet if you have deep carpets. I never thought of our carpets as deep but they’re deep enough. When we put the feet on and I reweighed myself, it registered my weight correctly. So unless you have hardwood or tile floors, or the extremely tight carpets, you want to put those extra feet on the bottom of your board.

We then went through and played various games, Katie was most interested in the aerobic stuff and the balance, neither Yoga nor Weight training appeal to her. I’ve now done stuff in all four categories preferring aerobics and balance as well, though I did enjoy doing some yoga this morning.

One thing we noticed is that you definitely should have your shoes on for the aerobics section if you’re feet are flat. I’m okay going barefoot but K noted her sore feet afterward and so shoes are now required.

It’ll be interesting to see how these 30 days go, today is day 2.

I feel great.

I’m going to hit a full week without more than a sip of K’s Coke of caffeine in the past week! And let me tell you, it was rough going to get started but now I’m really glad I decided to cut it out.

As I’ve told people, at my peak here is my standard day:

2 Mountain Dews in the morning, a soda of some sort with lunch, go by 7-11 after lunch and get an energy drink (Red Bull or Amp) and then a soda more in the afternoon.

I had energy to spare but when I crashed, I crashed hard. That’s a lot of caffeine and very unhealthy for someone. I’m going to begin cutting out candy next, it’s going to be fruit for me!

The health benefits are numerous here. It’s a major step towards cutting out empty calories, though I still have a Sprite on occasion but it’s been a lot of water for me lately. The caffeine is an addiction and the idea of being addicted to something bothers me deeply even if it is “harmless” like caffeine.
Also, would anyone out there be interested in attending a Word Camp which is basically a mini convention aimed at Wordpress, blogging and such? I’m considering trying to organize one for Orlando. It would be a few months off, August at the absolute earliest.

Let me know!

My friends on Twitter got the news that all was on its way to being well after Saturday’s discovery of some financial craziness with my bank account. Now it’s time to give everyone the full details. Let’s start, back in 2005.

In 2005, while a student at Georgia Tech, I got a job with a company in Atlanta which paid me as a contractor meaning they didn’t withhold any taxes. My two bosses were quite up front and clear that this meant that I needed to save money for tax time. A lesson I did heed and paid for the 2005 taxes quite easily (I only worked there for a month during 2005.)

photo credit: Paul Keleher

For 2006 I did my best to save money but this was when I left school and then made the sudden decision to return home to Orlando. The move itself and life in general sapped any savings I had made, and the dire warnings of my old bosses were forgotten until tax time came and I was staring at over $2,000 of owed taxes. Well, on my pay at the theatre that was hard to come by but I did my best sending off two payments fairly quickly.

Then mom went into the hospital and the rest was forgotten for a while. It was a few months before I got notice from the IRS that I was late on my payment. I tried to pull the money together but in truth I didn’t try that hard, the threat wasn’t imminent and I was living the high life. I managed to get a third payment off eventually and I marked my calendar for a fourth but I let that deadline come and go and slacked off.

Soon the letters and calls began to come. They caught me one day when I went home for work turning my 30 minute lunch at home into an hour and a half as I sat on the phone waiting to talk to a live person.

I made a payment by phone, the women said that I should call to confirm the payment went through, but when I saw the money had been withdrawn I didn’t call them, I just assumed all was well.

A month or two passes, I file my 2007 taxes and paid them, under the full belief that all was right and I was clear.

Come Friday night, I had money withdrawn from my account to the tune of more than $730. Meaning the vast majority of my paycheck. So with this money gone I call the banks to discover it was the IRS taking money that I “owed” them. Since it was Saturday when I came to this discovery I had to wait until today to call them.

The offices opened at 8am so I called about 8:07 and spoke with a gentleman, he was very helpful explaining that my payment in March over the phone had actually been applied to my unfiled 2007 taxes. How helpful of them considering the payment was over twice what I owed the government for this year.

So he switched the payments for me and asked for the fax number to send a stop to my bank. Unfortunately since it is Citi Bank I couldn’t find a fax number on their website, so I had to hang up with him and call them to get a number. Call the IRS back to re-explain my situation and provide the fax number.

I’m not convinced it’s all taken care of yet, I will wait to see the money restored to my account, but I am glad to hear and learn several things.

1. I’m most glad to learn that the levy was filed incorrectly.
2. I’m glad to learn that the IRS is not an impossible beast unwilling to help me, as long as you speak up and remain calm the people there are happy to help you.
3. Citi bank has to go. Not having a physical bank I can go to with problems is beginning to pose more of a problem as my forms of income begin to diversify and grow more confusing.
4. Pay your taxes. I’m not getting three years like Wesley Snipes but I did temporarily lose control of 3/4s of my pay check and just before rent is due.

photo credit: carencey

It’s a horrible feeling to log into your bank account and see withdrawals you didn’t make. Marked as teller withdrawals and over three quarters of this week’s paycheck gone in a flash. I immediately call the bank to report the incident in hopes of reclaiming the money in time for rent this month.

The indian fellow on the other end was less than helpful just saying that the charges hadn’t posted yet and so they couldn’t file any investigation until Tuesday morning when the charges post. So now I’m left feeling utterly helpless, the bank won’t help me for two more days, which would be two days before rent.

After a few minutes I decide to call back and try to figure anything else out, this person was much more helpful as he informed me that the withdrawals were actually IRS withdrawals, apparently taking money for last year’s taxes. Now, I admit that I f*cked up last years taxes horribly, but I had paid it off back in March. My bank shows the withdrawal for a similar amount to what was taken today.

So the truth appears that now I just have to wait until Monday to call the IRS and try to straighten this all out. But knowing what happened doesn’t make me feel any less helpless or any less violated. I’m just sort of in shock right now as I sit watching the Magic play Toronto.

I hate taxes